Monday, August 26, 2013

Gosick Anime Review

Gosick Review

Written by: ClayDragon

It’s like Sherlock Holmes, with romance and
tsunderes.

Allow me to
be particularly honest for a moment. When I was first recommended to watch Gosick, I checked out a quick summary
online, and I wasn’t exactly gripped with enthusiasm. A romantic storyline set
in post WW1 Europe? It sounded like a slightly tweaked anime version of DowntonAbbey. However, in the interests of writing a fair, balanced review,
I decided to push aside my doubts and actually sit down to watch it. This, it
turns out, was a good thing.

The easiest
way I can describe Gosick is that
it’s like a cross between Sherlock Holmes,
Black Butler, and Professor Layton. In 1924, a young boy
named Kazuya Kujo is sent to the (fictional) country of Sauville in order to
study at a boarding school. There, he meets Victorique, a super-intelligent
girl who solves mysteries to alleviate her boredom. Together, they fight crime.
And despite the cutesy style of this show, it certainly doesn’t shy away from
blood or death.

"I absolutely must get the number of your stylist."

Visually, Gosick is amazing. The opening is
animated in a style reminiscent of art nouveau, and it causes it to stand out
that little bit more. In terms of the actual anime, the character designs are
well done, and the backgrounds are painstakingly detailed. The music is good as
well, but it’s not as memorable or catchy as that of some other shows. The
opening song, however, fits the animation perfectly and captures the tone of
the series.

That's pretty much her default expression.

Character-wise,
Gosick is kind of a mixed bag. Kujo
is a likable main character, and serves his role as the audience surrogate very
well. The only complaint I could make about him is that he feels that he always
has to save Victorique, and that gets tiring quite quickly. On the other hand,
Victorique’s sheer intelligence is a big plus, but she acts like a typical
tsundere – harsh one minute, soft the next. The problem is, she has far too
many harsh moments, and so ends up looking far too uncaring.

That'll be two ribs broken, at least.

It’s the
same story with the more minor characters, i.e. they would be really good, but
they end up being held back by some damaging trait. Avril is a nice, likable
person, but she’s often pushed aside. Grevil is a good source of comic relief
and is a multi-layered character, but the fact that he follows his father’s
every order makes it difficult to sympathise with him sometimes. Brian Roscoe
is one of the most enigmatic, badass characters in the show, and yet he gets
very little screentime. You get the idea.

Dignity = Destroyed.

In terms of
the actual story, Gosick is pretty
much spot-on. The various mysteries are usually interesting enough to grab your
attention, and it can be fun to try and figure out the solution before it’s
actually revealed. The slow build-up to the outbreak of WW2 is a good backdrop,
and it offers a decent perspective into how a country would react to the threat
of a looming war. The only problem with the story is that the conclusion to
each mystery sometimes involves huge leaps of logic to reach a solution that
was never even hinted at before Victorique mentioned it, making her look like she can read minds or see the future.

"Made you look!"

Each mystery
usually has a self-contained villain who is done away with at the end of the
arc, and surprisingly this is pretty much true of the main bad guy too.
Granted, he appears at a few points throughout the story, but his plans only
really come into prominence in the final few episodes. In another surprising
departure from the clichés of this genre, his villainy is pretty much a foregone
conclusion after seeing his first appearance. In fact, if you watch the opening
and still don’t know which of the characters is a villain, you obviously
weren’t paying too much attention.

Overall, Gosick is a solid, enjoyable anime. It
isn’t particularly ground-breaking, by any means, but the design, characters
and plot will keep you entertained.

Good Things: The characters are mostly likable.

The pretty
visuals.

That feeling you
get when you solve a mystery before the solution is revealed.

Bad Things:Victorique
comes off as too harsh.

Lack of focus on
some good characters.

The Verdict:

Enjoyable and Entertaining.

Got any ideas for an anime I should review? Post your suggestion in the comments below!

ClayDragon:

ClayDragon is currently studying Physics at university, and is constantly bewildered by it. The main method of contacting him is his Gmail account at kyleroulston1993@gmail.com. The alternative is his Skype account at kyleroulston1993. When not playing games or reading, he can be found with his head in his hands whilst trying in vain to understand quantum physics. Most forms of technology hate him.

5 comments:

Awww, I'm happy you reviewed the anime I recommended, thank you (^_^).I personnally LOVE Victorique's harshness ! But I'm biased because I love violent girls in anime (Sakura in NARUTO, Kagura in Gintama, Erza in Fairy Tail, etc.). So I guess this is not to everyone's taste...But anyway, I'm looking forward your next review !

I don't have a problem with violent girls per se, but it's when they're violent for no good reason that puts me off. And if violence is your thing, you should enjoy my review of Hellsing Ultimate next week.Thanks for your comment(and recommendation)!

Personally,I found it compelling initially but in the end, I didn't care for Victorique. When she cries when Kujo is deported, it's not the wail of someone losing a loved one. It felt more like a spoiled brat being disciplined for the first time in her life and crying because her favorite toy was taken away. Besides that, there are internal inconsistencies. Initially(in one of the first three episodes), Victoriques's father was said to have kept her imprisoned because he couldn't stand the fact that Cordelia was an "exile". So she was, in essence, the family's "shameful secret", hence her being locked up. This in fact, became a reason for Victorique to travel to Seirun and clear her mother's name. Later, the whole story's revamped, making the father a more classic villain who kidnaps, rapes and forcibly impregnates Cordelia for a eugenics experiment involving her "gray wolf" bloodline. Sounds to me like they were writing out of their ass. That's an internal inconsistency that destroys the story itself. Also, there are some rather ridiculous deductions like how a man is African simply because he appeared as a shadow on a pitch-black road. Apparently, being a natural black makes you invisible in the dark. Gosick seems to me like an anime with a reasonably good concept that tried way too hard.